Swimming Lessons
by Estoma
Summary: The salt water burns her eyes and her nightgown drags her back as she fixes her sight on the spot where the waves swallowed her son.


**Author's note: For the Caesar's Palace october oneshot challenge. Thanks to sohypothetical for beta-ing. **

_1._

High above the district, a gibbous moon shines down. Full bellied like a sail, stretched and filled with the wild north wind during a storm, it hangs low on the horizon. Strange shadows are born from the moonlight. While the sand is painted pure silver the shadows cast by the leathery leafed coastal wattle, huddled above the high tideline, are deep and dark. Extending from the waxing moon is a bright pathway across the tranquil water. Small ripples make the path sway and shimmer and it ends just where the wavelets break on the shore.

The children of District 4 learned the stories of the constellations, the waves and the moon. They were not taught in schools but the elders held them as lore and when the winter storms raged up and down the coast and the shutters were bolted tight, families would gather around the driftwood fire to tell tales. In hushed voices, the elders would tell of a man who could walk on water and horses that rose from the sea and lured children onto their backs to carry them below the surf.

The Cresta family was no different. When the wind rattled the shutters and the fire flared in the hearth, the children would gather around Grandfather's chair. Sixty years of working in the elements had tanned his skin to leather and his hands were calloused and arthritic. The shaking of his teacup on the saucer matched the rattling shutters outside. But his voice remained strong, if hoarse, for he had been a captain and had shouted orders to his crew for many years. In his lilting accent he brought the old stories to life.

Half a dozen Cresta children would gather by his feet and Annie, the youngest and boldest, would place her hands on his knees and gaze up at his wrinkled face with wide eyes. Reaching down, his jaw tight with pain from his joints, Grandfather would tuck a loose strand of hair back behind her ear and chuckle at her haphazard part. Her favourite story was the moon path. Silvery bright, it was not just the reflection of light on water. Sometimes, it was the road to the lost city of Atlantis, sunken before even the Dark Days. But, when Grandfather was in a melancholy mood, the loss of two sons swept overboard in the storms around the second quell weighing heavily on his shoulders, the moon path took on a more sombre purpose.

"If you follow it, with a true heart, and feet that do not falter," he said, "you'll find your lost ones waiting for you at the end, where the moon meets the water."

That was where the tale would be interrupted by Mother. With hands on hips, she reminded the children that it was just a tale, but Annie never missed her grandfather's wink, and she remembered the story.

_2._

"You don't understand!" Annie shrieks and lurches to her feet. Her hair, pulled from Johanna's hands as she tried to braid it, flies around her face like tangled banners of cloud caught in a storm. "I don't want to move on from my husband!"

"Annie," Johanna growls, rising from her chair on the porch. Her shoulders tense as she prepares to resume an old argument. "I'm not saying to forget Finnick, just that you need to move past him. Your son's at school now, for fuck's sake, and he's old enough to notice when his mother can't even get dressed in the morning, or forgets to shower!"

"I don't even know why you're here," Annie mutters, wrapping her arms around herself, and turning to look out to sea. The ocean is flat and hard, like a frown, or an argument with no conclusion. "You should be back with your own kids. Just leave me alone."

"I should be, instead of wasting my time with you," Johanna spits. "I'll go. But remember, you're not alone, you've got your son. You act like when Finnick died you were left with nothing. It's not true."

"But he was ours, he doesn't feel like _mine_," Annie whispers to Johanna's retreating back. "He was meant to be Finnick's, too."

_3._

Lucid dreams have haunted Annie since her district partner's head rolled to her feet and his hot blood splashed onto her skin. Trapped in her own mind and body she screams but never makes a sound until she wakes, gasping with sweat beading on her forehead. Tonight she dreams of a faceless man with her husband's bronze hair and his trident. He turns to her and holds his arms out but Annie can't go to him. When she wakes, it takes Annie several moments to remember Finnick's face, and then she's still not sure if she gets the lines around his mouth correctly. She sobs until her throat feels like it's tearing.

"Don't leave me love, please, don't leave me."

_4. _

The wind has picked up and it is nearly a gale. Prostrated along the sand, the wattle bends to the force of the wind. Whipped into a frenzy, the waves hurl themselves on the shoreline and the silvery path from the moon is shattered and indistinct. It's still there though, like a trail long unused where the bush has begun to reclaim it. The tide is out, and there is a long stretch before the crashing waves, and the sand is cold on Annie's feet. So is the first splash that breaks on her ankles and soaks the hem of her nightgown. It trails out behind her, white, like the wedding dress she could never clean because it smelt like Finnick's aftershave.

Annie does not falter as the waves break around her knees and then her waist. The insubstantial path made by the moon is more solid than the weatherboard house behind her, and the boy, sleeping now, with the sea green eyes and tousled hair. The roaring of the wind in her ears blocks out all else, but Annie can hear _his _voice.

"He'll be waiting, at the end, where the moon meets the water," Annie whispers but doesn't notice that her teeth chatter as the water comes up to her chest.

The waves, driven by the wind, crash against her and lift her off her feet. Sodden, her dark hair hangs down her back and slaps against her, but Annie still follows the pathway, using her arms to steady herself in a sort of breaststroke. In a rush, the icy water closes over her head and Annie remembers. Not her husband's face, but another, with his eyes, her nose and a grin all of his own. A high, frightened scream cuts through the roaring of the wind, and Annie turns, treading water, to see her son's head disappear below the dark waves.

The water has never fought her before, has never been her enemy, even when she was eighteen and treading water in the arena for eight hours. Now, the waves crash over her, like hands, trying to hold her back. She screams for her son, tearing her raw throat in a way that her forlorn sobs, holding her husband's photo, could never do. The salt water burns her eyes and her nightgown drags her back as she fixes her sight on the spot where the waves swallowed her son.

_5._

Gasping, coughing, Annie drags her child out of the icy, clawing waves and onto the sand. His little footprints show where he ran down the beach after her. Staggering, she cradles his head in her lap, the water washing over her feet and she brushes the hair back from his forehead, her hand shaking and weak with relief.

"Mother?" he coughs and his voice is weak.

"There now, I'm here," Annie says, stroking his cheek, and for the first time in five years, she really looks at her son. He's not Finnick, he's no replacement, but he's something special all on his own. And just maybe for the first time in her life, Annie has to be strong for someone else. "I'm not going to leave you alone, darling."


End file.
